Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Study Links Baby Aspirin To Reduced Liver Fat In Liver Disease Sufferers
Low-dose aspirin led to a reduction in liver fat among patients with metabolic-associated liver disease, a small study out of Boston found. (Cueto, 3/19)
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it will buy Canadian drug developer Fusion Pharmaceuticals Inc for $2 billion in cash as the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker bets on next-generation cancer treatments. The deal gives AstraZeneca a foothold in the radiopharmaceutical drugs market, which has seen increasing investor interest since 2021 when data from Novartis' treatment showed that the drug extended survival for prostate cancer patients. (Shabong and Mishra, 3/19)
Bankrupt drugmaker Endo International said on Tuesday a U.S. Bankruptcy Court has approved its restructuring plan and related opioid settlements to emerge from bankruptcy, which began in 2022. ... Endo had last month agreed to pay up to $465 million over a decade to resolve over $7 billion in claims for purported tax debts, a criminal investigation into the company's opioid marketing and the federal government's possible overpayment for its medications. (3/19)
The US Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the first therapy for a rare and devastating condition called metachromatic leukodystrophy, which typically kills affected children聽before they turn 7. The聽one-time聽treatment, called Lenmeldy,聽takes stem cells from聽someone with MLD聽and uses a harmless virus to insert working copies of a faulty gene.聽The repaired cells are then infused back to the patient, where they begin to produce an enzyme that鈥檚 lacking in children who have the disease. (Goodman, 3/19)
Powerful weight loss medications aren鈥檛 reaching the people who need them most, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.聽... 鈥淥besity has been a long-standing clinical and public health change and it鈥檚 growing in scope,鈥 said Dr. Chiadi Ndumele, director of obesity and cardiometabolic research in the division of cardiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, who presented the findings Tuesday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago. (Miller and Kopf, 3/19)
